This invention relates to the field of portable structures. More particularly this invention relates to the field of mobile, expandable structures containing one or more rooms, that can easily be transported and assembled and conversely being equally as quick and convenient to disassemble for relocation. The expansion of these units is in both the horizontal and the vertical directions and provides for full support of the roof and upper walls without the need for hydraulics or other supports to keep the roof and upper portions elevated during use. These structures may or may not be permanently affixed to a framework with wheels to be towed by a motor vehicle. The unique method of erecting and supporting will be fully described within body of this patent.
There are many designs of mobile structures but most are burdened with a flimsy structure or are limited in the area into which they can expand, while others are cumbersome, awkward to transport, and labor intensive to assemble. Such portable light structures are usually in the trailer style and used for private accommodations while the larger units are designed to fulfill government contracts. The device as herein described and disclosed, will fully meet the structural requirements of a mobile commercial or military accommodation of one or more rooms while being low profile, light weight and easy to transport. It uniquely provides for full support of the upper portions upon lower portions and thus increases the load-bearing ability of the upper portions.
The need for adequate accommodations for disaster relief structures, that can be stored in a relatively small area and quickly dispersed to be set up as office space, medical room, temporary storage, maintenance and repair rooms, etc., has been made vary apparent recently. In the past there was a requirement that everything used for housing and relief had to travel over rough terrain to get to a desired activity site. With the development of the roads throughout the developed areas of the world, and the use of large air transport planes capable of vehicle transport, there is almost no place that is not accessible by some form of road system. With government and military requirements for portable structures, there has also not been a great deal of concern with weight because large vehicles usually transport units of this kind with the primary concern being, making them indestructible.
Problems arise when mobile structures of this kind become too heavy to be moved around easily in urban environments, often requiring a lot of heavy equipment for assembly. One of the many unique features of this invention is the capability of maintaining a lightweight solid structure while almost doubling the square footage of internal protected floor area. Additional problems arise in the time involved to assemble conventional cumbersome mobile structures.
The unique device herein disclosed describes a structure that is equipped with all the mechanisms required to easily erect and be fully assembled by one or two people in less than ten minutes, with the same time required for disassembly. An additional feature of this structure is that the floor inside the erected structure is completely flat and provides a large working area. The erected structure features a roof and upper sides and ends that are fully supported by a translateable lower endwall thus elevating the stress on conventional hydraulic and screw extensions during long term use. Also paramount to the development of the disclosed device was to provide a portable housing unit of this kind, keeping the weight down while being structurally solid enough to meet the stringent structural requirements of government and military contracts.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,890,498. of Floyd E. Bigelow relates to a portable building, and more particularly to a house or cabin structure made up of separate parts which may be easily assembled and disassembled and which disassembled may be formed into a compact assemblage for covenant storage or transportation. This structure does not have a central framework, and would not be convenient to transport over the highway to a disaster site, or work well for portable offices.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,866,365 of Michael L. Honigman describes expandable structural modules for space enclosures that incorporate a number of sophisticated mechanisms to assemble a device used as cabin trailers or camper units. This device cannot achieve extended lengths and would not be practical for a commercial of government enclosure.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,518 of Walter Fenns describes a collapsible building, which is mounted on the platform of a conveyance that has a first elongated unit mounted on a platform, and a pair of collapsible elongated units, which flank the first unit when the building is fully erected. This is a large heavy structure requiring a semi truck to transport and it does not present a low profile when towing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,850,268 of Kenichiro Saito et al, describes a multi-purpose laboratory room for mobile applications. The room comprises a housing structure having an airtight laboratory unit, an entrance unit and an air-conditioning system. This is a specialized structure, not easily transported or used for other applications.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,874 of Leslie J. Hegedus discloses a mobile unit comprises a lorry trailer having sidewall portions, which pivot down to form a large floor and upwardly slideable panels or frames from which unfold side roof portions. This invention discloses a trailer-mounted structure that is very complicated and time-consuming to erect. It does not supply a low profile when towing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,345,730 of Bruce A. Jurgensen teaches of an expandable structure, which may be expanded on a selected site into a composite structure incorporating the core structure and a contiguous expanded section. This is another patent that discloses a device that will only expand laterally and cannot be lowered to create less wind resistance when being towed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,761,854 of Brian D. Johnson et al, describes a container with fold down sides to create an expanded structure. This again is another patent that discloses a device that will only expand laterally and cannot be lowered to create less wind resistance when being towed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,797,224 of Ray R. Gunthardt describes a multitude of structures composed of many intricate parts and mechanism, all of which would create a great deal of weight and be very complicated to erect.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,815,988 of Jose Raymon Molina teaches of an expandable retractable portable structure having a movable portion hingedly connected to a stationary portion. This patent is similar to the Fennes U.S. Pat. No. 4,603,518 having a complete side unit hinge out from a central unit producing a high profile when towing.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,964,065 of Tomasz K. Migurski et al, discloses an advanced vehicle-transportable field emergency medical system, comprising surgical suites deployed from a core module, each expanding to form an enclosed surgical treatment room with perimeter tenting space. This patent relates to a complicated, specialized structure with a specific purpose taking a great deal of time to erect by people who were familiar with the intricacies of the device.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,596,844 of Juan R. Kalinowski describes a foldable portable building that be collapsed to fit within the outside dimensions of an internationally standardized (ISO) goods container. This patent describes a very heavy unit when it is in the collapsed state and very complicated to erect.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,956 of Leland M. Morris et al, teaches of a portable unit which is foldable to be shipped and transported as a standard cargo shipping container. This is another patent that describes a heavy structure that is cumbersome and heavy to transport.
As such, there is a need for a structure that is fixated on a central framework and easy to transport by towing or trucking. Such a device should have a low profile to facilitate movement where low passage height exists. Such a device should be compact yet an expandable structure that is easily erected in a minimum amount of time by a minimum number of people. Further, such a device should be structurally sturdy and self supporting of the upper structure by the lower portion of the structure to alleviate stress on hydraulic or similar expansion means during long term use of the expanded unit.
The invention herein disclosed relates to a new and unique system for assembling and supporting mobile, expandable structures that accommodate one or more rooms. More specifically, these structures will expand on both length and width outwardly at the same time and then elevate all the roof members together in a secondary operation to a desired height, which in the current best mode is substantially eight feet. Once so elevated, the roof and upper wall portions are structurally supported in their elevated position by lower walls which translate into a position to register in line with the upper walls and thereby support the upper half of the structure securely during the expanded mode.
The expanding and elevating of the roof members is provided by a central means to elevate the roof member and a means to expand the sides which in the current best mode is provided by hydraulic cylinders communicating with pressurized fluid from motor energized pumps. However those skilled in the art will realize that other common mechanical means, such as screw jacks or cables and motors and similar come along type devices could be used and such are anticipated. A secondary manual back-up expansion system will achieve all the same results in the event that there is not enough power in the batteries to operate the preferred hydraulic system.
The structures may be mounted on a variety of vehicles or on fixed foundations and could even be dropped on site by a helicopter or large truck. Because of the large area of unobstructed floor space yielded by the expanded device and unique folding floor elements, the internal configuration can consist of a single large room, two or more smaller rooms with a kitchen and restrooms being other additional options.
When transporting the structure all components which expand to the erected structure will be best transported in the retracted positions. Upon arrival at the desired erecting sight, when vehicle mounted as in the current preferred mode, the structure base will first be leveled and stabilized by actuating the hydraulic levers in a hydraulic control box on the tongue at the front of the structure. Four of these controls operate the hydraulic jacks at the four corners of the central frame forming the base, which are the means used to initially level the base of the device. Next, the hydraulic motor energizes the hydraulic rams or cylinders that extend the two opposing side sections can be activated with another lever in the hydraulic control box. This provides the means to laterally translate the side sections from a first retracted position inside the interior cavity of the central structure, formed between the central top unit and the central bottom unit, to the extended position. The length of the expandable side sections is described, but not limited to the full length of the interior cavity of the mobile, expandable structure. Each side section may vary in length and location on the mobile, expandable structure and still be covered within the scope of this patent. When the side sections are fully extended the central roof section and the side section roof panels are interlocked together to form a watertight seal. Then the support legs on the corners of the side sections are manually extended to the ground to fully stabilize the complete structure.
The next operation is to activate the hydraulic lever in the hydraulic control box as a means to raise all the roof elements at the same time with the central hydraulic cylinder. The roof elements must be raised above their fixed position preferably at least two inches allowing a gap for the front and back bottom wall panels to be repositioned before lowering. Telescoping guide cylinders at the four corners of the central frame align the top and bottom sections. The top and bottom wall panels at the front and back are aligned with a means for cooperative in-line engagement currently provided by alignment pins and bushings. This unique interlocking feature allows that when bottom sections of both end wall panels are relocated from their position in the interior cavity and under the top sections of the end wall panels, and the roof elements are lowered into their fixed position, the top sections will be fully supported by the bottom sections and form a seal thereon combining to a solid wall section, both in the front and back of the structure. A means to translate the bottom wall panel of the end wall panel assemblies, from a first position out of line with the centerline of the top wall panels to a secondary position registered with inline with the centerline of the top wall panel provides this unique function which in the current best mode is two or more beveled locating pins extending from the top edge of the bottom wall panel to engage within orifices in bushings located along the bottom edge of the top wall panel. This registered sealed engagement is combined with a slide or hinged translation of the bottom section. By translating the bottom sections into cooperative sealed registered engagement with the top sections of the endwalls, the primary load of the roof component of the locked side section roofs and central roof section and the upper portions of the wall attached thereto is removed from the central hydraulic cylinder and translated to the end walls. During long term use of the device, this provides relief to the hydraulic cylinder or other elevation means from the constant weight of these sections. It also provides added safety to the inhabitants of the structure since the potential for collapse of the upper section onto the bottom is elevated by the bottom endwalls supporting all the weight inline. In the event that the roof is covered with snow or ice or soil increasing the weight of the upper section, the support scheme provided by the engagement of the lower endwalls inline and sealed with the upper endwalls provides extra load bearing and safety to the occupants.
At least one door but preferably two doors with one in both the front and back end wall panels are preferably formed of two sections and operate like a common Dutch door. By using the two piece endwalls with half the door on each, the door handle and lock on the lower section and a second lock on the upper section, both swing independently. However, a registered and permanently engaged door of two sections might also be used. Windows in the doors and wall panels will be at the option of the customer requirements.
In the preferred embodiment the floor panels for the side sections will be lowered and raised automatically with straps that are attached to the lower edges of the top sections. When the top section is raised, the strap communicating between the top section and the floor section slackens and both side section floor panels are lowered into position flush with the center floor section thus creating a completely flat floor. The straps are then disconnected and stored. In this preferred embodiment, the floor panel hinge will attach on the outermost lower edge of the bottom section on each of the side sections to result in a completely flat floor surface when the device is in the fully extended position with both sides extended.
A second embodiment would feature the same center section arrangement but the floor panels will have the floors of the side sections hinging on the inner edge attached to the central frame structure to be manually lowered to form a completely flat floor.
A third preferred embodiment would again use essentially the same center section arrangement but will have the complete bottom side section with the floor included, hinging on the inner edge attached to the central frame structure. This will form area with sealed containment area to keep equipment and supplies in a clean environment when being transported or stored. This embodiment of the invention will also have a completely flat floor surface. The preferred embodiment of the top section of the side sections will be constructed of, but not limited to a one-piece fiberglass section. The top section will consist of a front and rear end panel, a pair of side panels and a roof panel. Both top and bottom sections will have side panels that may or may not have one or more windows to be determined by the customer""s requirements.
In an additional preferred embodiment to reduce weight should that be desired, the top sections of the side sections will be a tubular framework covered with a waterproof fabric. Not only covering the ends, sides and top of the side sections, the fabric may extend past the side wall to create a retractable awning. The fabric used for covering the top sections of the side sections may incorporate flexible photovoltaic cells for generating operating power for the structure.
An alternate preferred embodiment of the structure will have one each of the end wall panels of two separate structures replaced with header units to accommodate the mating together of two or more structures when placed back-to-back thus forming twice the open flat floor area of a single structure.
An object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that when retracted or assembled will pass the rigid structural specifications and requirements of commercial and government contracts.
Another object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that is not excessively heavy.
A further object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that can be extended and setup in less than ten minutes.
An additional object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that when fully extended will be close to twice the retracted size.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that when extended will have an eight foot ceiling and completely flat floor with vertical walls.
A further object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure with wall, end panels and doors that can be equipped with glass windows.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure with a two-part front and back wall panel system that interlocks to form two rigid end wall units with the weight of the top half of the structure fully supported by the bottom endwalls.
Another object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that the two top sections of the side sections can be covered with a waterproof photovoltaic material that will generate electrical power.
Still another object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure with expandable side sections that may be rotated in and out of place and form a sealed compartment with the central floor area.
An additional object of this invention is to provide a mobile, expandable structure that can be retracted to have a narrow low profile, to be easily towed behind a motor vehicle on the street.
These together with other objects and advantages which will become subsequently apparent reside in the details of construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part hereof, wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout.